GoHeels Exclusive: Tuesday Notebook

By Pat James, GoHeels.com

With two regular-season games left, only two scenarios remain for North Carolina: win out and qualify for a bowl game or lose one game and most likely miss the postseason.

For a team that's missed the postseason two straight years, such a scenario could come with some added pressure. But Mack Brown doesn't sense any.

"I feel pressure every day to do everything right in this program, on and off the field," Brown told reporters Monday. "I think we're doing things right off the field. We're close on the field, we're so close. … It's been an up-and-down year with expectations because the kids have probably exceeded expectations.

"If they win on Saturday, they've won as many games as we've won here the last two years, so they're definitely making progress. Everybody who watches them knows there's a great future and that they're playing with a lot of confidence."

The Tar Heels will look to continue doing that Saturday, when they face Mercer in the final home game of the season. Before then, Brown, Jay Bateman and Phil Longo met with reporters on Monday. Here are five notes from what they had to say:

Antonio Williams' big game

One of the bright spots Thursday was Antonio Williams, who turned 12 carries into a season-high 107 yards. Entering the game, the senior had rushed for 137 yards all season. But with Javonte Williams dealing with an upper-body injury, the elder Williams stepped up.

"Really proud of Antonio Williams," Brown said. "When Javonte Williams went out, Antonio stepped up and had a great game, and he's had a tremendous attitude. I think he's been the hardest worker on this team, he's had the best attitude of anybody in my estimation on this team and I'm really, really proud of him.

"For all those young guys who were not getting the amount of reps they needed to, this guy never griped; he stepped up, he's been a team leader the entire time and when his time came, he was ready and produced."

UNC announced Monday that Javonte Williams has returned to practice. But even with the sophomore expected to be available against Mercer, Brown said Antonio Williams might've earned some more carries.

"When you have depth like that – with Michael Carter, Javonte Williams and Antonio Williams – it's hard to share the wealth with three guys …" Longo said. "You're working all three of them, and that's allowed all three of them to stay maybe fresher than they would if two guys were getting reps and in-game reps, as well.

"Javonte got a little nicked up. Michael Carter is feeling good. Javonte will be back; that's not an issue. And Antonio, obviously, came in with fresh legs, and I don't think we missed a beat in running the game thanks to him and his performance."

A special group

Antonio Williams is one of 19 seniors, including academic seniors who have elected to forego their final year of eligibility, who will play their last game at Kenan Stadium on Saturday. Brown might not have recruited them. But that doesn't mean this senior day will be less significant.

"Our first day that we got here …" Brown said, "the first thing we said is, 'We're not going to talk about rebuilding, because this is about seniors. And the last two groups of seniors didn't finish well; they're not going to remember their senior year in a really bright, positive, glowing way that we all like to.'

"What people do is say, 'How were you as a senior? How'd you do? How'd you win? Who'd you beat?' and all that kind of stuff. I wanted our seniors to do that, and our seniors will be known for the group that got this headed back in the right direction; they have done that. Now, we need to finish right for them."

Both Bateman and Longo talked about what the seniors mean to them.

"The thing I've been most impressed with these seniors," Bateman said, "is I think I'm their third D-coordinator, for most of them, with their third or fourth position coach in some cases, and they have never blinked. It's never been one time, 'Well, what about this way? I like this way better. This call is too hard.' They have really embraced what we're trying to ask them to do. I think they're really good leaders and I think they compete."

"They're all easy to talk to, they're all personable, they're all great kids," Longo said. "Any one of those guys could babysit my daughters. I mean, that's what I feel when we're talking about that group. And I don't know that I would miss them any less than I would some kids that I've had three and four years. They're great people, and I would hope that five, 10, 15, 20 years from now, we're still in communication, and I would jump at the opportunity to help any one of those guys, just because of who they are, and how they've handled themselves since we've been here."

'The future is unlimited'

As difficult as it will be to replace some of the seniors, Brown is optimistic about the direction the program is heading.

"I think the future is unlimited," Brown said. "I think we've got a chance to be really good. If you look at it, we lose a few players on offense and that's it. The offense has been really good and we will go back and improve our red-zone offense. … We just need to go back and reemphasize it and do it better again.

"(Garrett) Walston stepped up at tight end, he's playing most of the time. (Nick) Polino's played very little because of his broken ankle and Charlie Heck's the only other senior. (Jake) Bargas has played some at tight end. We lose very, very few seniors, not an offensive lineman for two years, which is really interesting. But I think the future is going to be great. I'm really excited about our offense moving forward."

And although there will be more holes to fill on defense, that doesn't mean Brown is any less excited about its potential.

"I like Ray (Vohasek), he's made some plays," Brown said. "Jahlil (Taylor) has made some plays and is doing some good things. I like Tomari Fox, I think he'll be a good player moving forward. And then in the secondary, you've got your transfer from Virginia Tech in Bryce Watts. You've got your transfer from Clemson in Kyler McMichael. You've got your transfer from Auburn in [Cam'Ron] Kelly, he'll be back. Then you add to that all we've got coming back who are playing right now and then Patrice (Rene) coming back, we should have a chance to be really good in the secondary next year.

"I think we'll definitely have a better team next year and we'll have a lot of those great young defensive players coming in who we've recruited. Some real speed on offense and then I think we'll be special in two more years."

Problems in the red zone

In Thursday's 34-27 overtime loss at Pittsburgh, UNC had a chance to win the game after driving down to the Panthers' 13-yard line with about a minute left in regulation. But Carolina ultimately settled for a game-tying field goal by Noah Ruggles. Then, in overtime, the Tar Heels faced first-and-10 at Pittsburgh's 11, but were unable to score.

UNC now ranks 13th in the ACC and 113th nationally in red zone touchdown percentage (48.7).

"The last three weeks, we haven't done a good job in red-zone and short-yardage, fourth-down offense," Brown said. "We were doing so well with that early in the year. So, we've got to go back and look at the last three weeks. We've played good defenses, but we also still have to score in the red zone; that's keeping us from winning."

Longo shared his thoughts on the Tar Heels' red-zone struggles.

"The red zone, at the end of the day, that falls on me, but we've had some opportunities in the red zone," he said. "I thought we handled a number of them earlier in the season. That has not been the case the last few games here. And so we did emphasize red zone last week. We had a couple of plays that we put in specifically for Pittsburgh. A couple of them popped for us. One of them was the touchdown to Dyami (Brown).

"But execution down there, maybe some game planning, is something that we're going to emphasize this week because it just has to get better. That's probably the area, offensively, right now, that's the greatest concern."

Secondary issues

After allowing Virginia to average 7.2 yards per play on Nov. 2, Carolina's defense surrendered 498 offensive yards at a 6.4 yards-per-play clip against Pittsburgh. On Monday, Brown said "we're not the defense we were against Clemson and even Georgia Tech." And a banged-up secondary is a significant reason why.

"We'll probably start two true freshmen and a redshirt freshman on Saturday with DeAndre Hollins and Storm Duck, and we're going to start Don Chapman instead of D.J. Ford," Brown said. "Myles Dorn has had his hands full back there trying to direct traffic and get everybody in the right place, but he's done a really good job of that.
"From Jay's standpoint, it is hard to call defenses when you're trying to protect young guys in the secondary, and that's something that we battle each week. We've played some good quarterbacks here lately and the guys have taken advantage of that."

Bateman expanded on that, noting that the defense has "had a hard time with some of the pass concepts we're seeing."

"With some of the youth in the secondary and then having to move around with the linebackers a little bit, we just don't have a lot of banked reps when it comes to certain things," he said." I've got to coach them better. And we've got to be able to translate – it's hard to practice exactly what you get. The enemy gets a vote. So, we've got to be able to handle some in-game adjustments a little better than we have.

"I think that's the problem with youth. You've got immature kids, you've got kids who haven't played a lot and then you try to get them to do something that we haven't practiced, that's where some of our challenges have lied. I've got to do a better job of preparing them for that stuff. I felt like we were a step behind on all those throws against Pitt."

Players Mentioned

Michael Carter

Don Chapman

Myles Dorn

Storm Duck

D.J. Ford

Tomari Fox

Charlie Heck

Ladaeson DeAndre Hollins

Kyler McMichael

Noah Ruggles

Bryce Watts

Antonio Williams

Javonte Williams

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